


Crash Test Dummy

by danveresque



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 14:47:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21738346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danveresque/pseuds/danveresque
Summary: Robert gets out of prison and straight into trouble.
Relationships: Aaron Dingle/Robert Sugden
Comments: 24
Kudos: 112





	Crash Test Dummy

Robert was hanging upside down, kind of, still buckled into his seat. He could feel a trickle of sticky warmth on his face, which made sense as soon as he smelled and tasted the metallic tang of blood. He was hurt in other places, but _thankfully_ his head injury was making him woozy enough to not really be able to concentrate on the pain.

He’d been sitting in the passenger seat next to the cab driver, Tom, feeling chatty. Tom was dead, if his limp body was anything to go by. It was a pity. He had a wife and a kid. Robert couldn’t remember much about the wife, the kid was seven, and her dad called her Emmy. She was full of energy apparently, lighting up every room she went into. Good dad was Tom.

Robert’s chest shuddered painfully, tears mixing with blood. Car crashes, such a pointless way to die. Of all the ways a person could die, in a car crash seemed the cruelest. Accidents were a mockery of human life. He’d be fine though. He always was, wasn’t he? Always got out of these messes to carry on making more messes. Life had been a series of car crashes that Robert has somehow walked away from unharmed, if a little battered and bruised. 

He closed his eyes. His head was spinning and heavy, making him feel sick. And his lungs felt all wrong, like something had filled up after the space in his chest. Every little movement was sending a jolt through his arm. Something was broken there definitely. He shook his head. He couldn’t get out of this. Not by himself.

He looked across at Tom, looking away immediately from the sorry sight. How the hell had he ended up like this? Today he was meant to get his life back. Today was meant to be a day of celebration. _Today_ he was free again.

Wasn’t this just his life though? One car crash after another.

*****

“Look at you mate. Look like you won the lottery,” Mike, fellow murderer, had said to him a few days ago. “Wish they’d find some _circumstantial_ evidence on my case, eh?”

Mike laughed hard at that. He laughed hard everything. Scared the shit out Robert, the way Mike thought everything was a laugh. Knocked some bloke’s block off, he had said, one punch and dead. He didn’t seem to care. He told the story with pride. _Fucking look at me like that_, he had muttered as he told the story, absolutely incredulous about someone daring to, well, fucking look at him like _that_. Only, Robert had no idea what _that_ look was, though he was sure he didn’t want to give it.

“What happened then?” Mike asked him, always curious about everyone. “This fucking rapist wake up in his coffin or something?”

Robert shrugged. “No idea, mate. I’m guessing I’ll be back in here in a week when they realise it’s a mistake. Not really adding up from where I’m standing.”

Mike considered this, which was good, because it made it less likely that Mike might do something reckless out of pure jealousy. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Yeah...cos you _did_ kill him. I mean, like, you fucking killed a man, mate.”

_Not just a man_, Katie whispered somewhere inside Robert’s skull_. _He nodded slowly. He was here paying for that, paying for all the terrible things he’d done. Washing away the stains from the fabric of his soul.

“I’d kill a rapist,” Mike mused. “Fucking cave his skull in, mate.”

On the other hand, Robert thought, he could always spend his life on the outside using an industrial strength washing machine to get those stains out rather than anywhere near Mental Mike.

*****

“Can you hear me?”

Robert opened his eyes and caught sight of the bent rear-view mirror, seeing a pair of blue eyes blinking at him under a reddish fringe. He blinked until the red from his eyesight cleared. The voice of a woman was coming from his left.

He tried to turn his head, slowly and painfully. There at the window, pressed against the ground was a face. She was peering at him and then telling someone he was awake, and Robert could hear more commotion.

“Okay, sir? I need you to hang tight. You’ve been in a car accident and the fire brigade is on its way to help us get to you. Until then, I need you to tell me-”

Robert closed his eyes. Everything seemed silent for a second, just the sound of his heart thumping in his head. Thumpthumpthump. Where was all the air? Did he even need it? His heart had always managed to function on bare minimum hadn’t it? Why not air too.

_You scared?_

Robert frowned at the whisper in his ear. It was young. But kind. That kindness had made Robert feel so...so wanted.

_You scared?_

Robert nodded. He _was _scared. Just because people didn’t see it, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He’d just become an expert at hiding fear under layers of extreme and intense idiocy.

“Scared...” he murmured, thinking over the question.

“You don’t have to be scared.” She sounded a little taken aback. He voice was softer when she spoke again, telling him her name was Trish or something, asking him his name.

It took a while, but he finally mumbled, “Robert.”

“Okay, good, Robert, nice name. Listen, Robert, you don’t need to be scared. Help’s on the way, okay?”

“Okay,” he told himself. “It’s okay.”

*****

_Robert. Are you scared? It’s okay, you don’t have to be. _

Robert nodded, looking into a pair of warm brown eyes. His name was Michael. He was two years older than Robert, this black-haired and pale-skinned boy, full of sinewy strength. He had the kind of mouth that always looked like it was smirking with it’s sharp uplifted corners. He’d tease Robert, poke him in the sides, make him laugh, wink at him. He was a total lad.

He made Robert’s heart trip furiously. Made him nervous and hot-faced. Made him happy and sad. Happy because whenever he was near Robert forgot everything else. Sad because he’d lay in bed at night, thinking all sorts. Thinking things he didn’t want in his head. In his heart. He wasn’t into lads. He didn’t care if other people were, but he _wasn’t_. He couldn’t be.

“Robert. Are you scared?” Michael asked as they sat in Robert’s room, perched on the edge of his small bed.

Robert wouldn’t look at him, sullenly staring down at his hands as he shook his head. “No.”

“Why have you gone all quiet on me then?” Michael poked his arm. “Oi. Look at me, come on.”

Robert looked up, full of nerves, blinking stupidly at Michael who looked like he knew everything there was to know about everything. Michael smiled at him, making his gut twist itself into knots. His voice quiet, a whisper. “I like you, Robert.”

Robert shrugged. “I like you too. We’re mates.”

“Yeah, well, I like you a bit more than that,” Michael said, showing a glint of teeth. More than _that_. What was _that_? Robert just frowned at him like an idiot. Michael leaned in a little. “You know what I mean?”

Robert scowled, wanting to shake his head. But he knew. How could he not know? He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I do.”

*****

Giving a bloke a blowjob in the back of a dinky car wasn’t technically a car crash, but it had felt like one at the time. How the hell had it even happened? He’d fought himself so hard after kissing Aaron in that layby, pushed it all down, stamped on the longing he felt pit deep in his stomach. It was hunger, absolute raw hunger he felt for Aaron. That kiss had made it worse. If he hadn’t known what it felt like to kiss Aaron, he wouldn’t have gone to the garage that night.

But no, he’d gotten into his car and driven there feeling shaky with need and excitement, hard despite going at it with Chrissie. He should have been sated because sex with Chrissie was hardly a chore. The touch of her skin, the scent of her expensive perfume, the way she made those breathy sounds as he moved in and out of her, the way she held him. It should have taken the edge off and more.

All he could think of was Aaron though. The look on his face, the way his eyes had widened, the way his mouth had parted as he looked up, full of want. Didn’t even try to hide it. He wasn’t scared at all. Christ, he would have had Robert right there on the side of a road up against a truck. It was all Robert could think of, that and the taste of Aaron’s mouth, the scratch of his beard. He wanted to feel it again so bad.

So there he was in that garage, trousers around his knees, his top somewhere on the floor, and Aaron seated partly in the car, Robert gripping the edge of the car’s roof as Aaron held tight to his hips, sucking him off like it was the end of the world. The feel of Aaron’s mouth, the wet heat of him around Robert’s dick – it was ruining him.

When Robert came, Aaron just swallowed it down, his fingernails digging into Robert’s skin. Robert had slumped against the roof of the car, smiling to himself_. _He pulled back to loosely grin at Aaron, only his grin vanished at the sight of the mardy mechanic. He looked dazed, looking up at Robert with twin oceans of want, almost red mouth shining and parted, his skin flushed pink.

Robert couldn’t stop staring at the sight of him. Not here. Not when he tried to fall asleep that night. Not when he woke up. It was a sight seared into his retinas. Seeing Aaron like this proved to be as dangerous as looking directly at the sun.

Robert dropped to his knees, taking Aaron’s face in his hands, pulling him into a kiss, thrilled at the taste of himself in Aaron’s mouth, moaning against Aaron’s lips which seemed to be moving without any coordination. Robert pulled one hand away to palm Aaron through his trousers, feeling out the hard bulge, getting Aaron to gasp hot and wet against Robert.

Robert pulled back with a grin, placing a hand on Aaron’s chest, shoving him back onto the seat before unbuckling, unbuttoning and unzipping Aaron out of his trousers. Robert took in the sight of him, lying there with his trousers pulled down to his thighs, pale skin against black clothes, eyes closed, mouth open as he breathed raggedly in anticipation. Robert kept his eyes on Aaron, all of him, as he lowered his head and took Aaron’s cock in his mouth.

*****

“I need you to keep awake, Robert.” Robert opened his eyes a crack. Tricia – Tracy? She sounded relieved. “That’s good, that’s good. Robert, do you think you can answer a few questions? I need to figure out how bad that bump on your head is.”

Robert scowled, tried to move and failed, murmuring, “What’s happening? Where’s Aaron?”

There was a pause, long and thoughtful. Someone was talking in a low voice, about the cab driver. Robert peered woozily at the space next to him. Tom was gone. Aaron...right. He remembered now. Aaron had been gone for a while.

“Who’s Aaron, Robert?” She asked him. He blinked at the blur of her. “Robert? Robert.”

“...husband,” Robert murmured. “At least...he was.”

“He was? What happened?”

Robert closed his eyes and sighed. He just wanted to go home. Get a head start on that grovelling.

*****

“So what’s going on?” Robert said with a scowl. His solicitor looked happy about something. Robert smiled, anticipating the answer. “The appeal’s gone through.”

“Um, no, not that,” Paul said.

“Then what you smiling about?” Robert said with annoyance.

“There’s been a development,” Paul said.

God he looked smug. This was going to be good. “What kind of development?”

“The records showing that Lee Posner died as a direct result of the injury he received at your hands...look to have been doctored,” Paul said.

“What? How’s that possible?” Robert asked.

Paul held up his hands in a _brace yourself_ gesture which made Robert frown. “It’s complicated, but the gist of it is that the investigation into Lee’s death has been scrutinised as part of an internal audit. There’s some question regarding the possible doctoring of evidence. Evidence that had direct impact on your sentencing. There’s reason to believe that Lee sustained an injury whilst _in_ hospital. The injury that actually killed him.”

Robert stared at Paul, shaking his head. “That...that makes no sense.”

Paul shrugged. “Does it have to? Robert, you’ve been in here over two years. If the investigation results in your favour, that’s half-way through the sentence they should have given you. There’s a good chance you could be getting out of here. Soon.”

Robert’s entire thought process came to a screeching halt, braking so hard he felt as if he was smashing through a windscreen. He’d been counting down fourteen. Counting down all the time he didn’t have with Aaron. Only now...he had time, but not Aaron.

“I thought you would have looked happier,” Paul said. Robert sighed, letting his head drop onto his folded arms. “Oh. Right. The divorce. I mean...I did advise you at the time-”

“Not now, Paul,” Robert muttered, sitting up straight again. “Let’s deal with that when I actually walk out of here.”

*****

_Are you scared?_

Pretending to stop in a layby didn’t really qualify as a crash, but everything that followed did. What the hell had he been thinking? What was so good about Aaron flipping Livesy that Robert was sat out on some layby faking engine failure just so he could breathe the same air as the village’s incredible sulk?

_Everything_, his woozy mind supplied.

He was petrified. The whole time he was waiting, he was scared. He had no idea what he was going to do once Aaron got there. Crash and burn probably. But then Aaron was walking away, slipping from reach, and Robert was pulling him back and kissing him.

Fear vanished like smoke in a strong breeze.

A door slammed. Robert flinched, blinking tiredly.

Where was he? _When_ was he? It was hard to tell.

“Go on,” Tricia said. “Keep talking. Your first kiss, you said, it was in a layby.”

Robert frowned. “First kiss?”

*****

Michael’s fingers had been on his cheek, barely touching him, and Robert was sat stock still, as dry chapped lips touched his own. It was barely anything. Just a tentative touch. And yet, electric. Michael seemed so much more grown up than him, so much more with it. To think he was kissing Robert. Robert smiled, pulling back to look at him.

“Okay?” Michael said.

Robert nodded. “Yeah.”

Their second kiss was better. It lasted longer, gave way to further exploration. Robert felt brave enough to do more than kiss, his hand on Michael’s arm. It seemed to be going somewhere, their bodies getting incrementally closer and closer until Robert was lying back, Michael half on top of him. It was happening. What he had only privately dreamed off was actually happening.

“Robert-”

His dad had stopped right there, one foot over the threshold of the room, the other outside, his hand still twisting the doorknob, his expression one of shock as Michael jumped away from Robert, looking terrified. He was right to. Jack Sugden had a temper.

“Think you’d better had leave, lad,” Jack told Michael very quietly. “And don’t come back. If you know what’s good for ya.”

Michael was gone in a flash. That just left Robert, a deer caught in the headlights.

A door slammed. Robert flinched.

*****

Robert collapsed on the bank, face first, breathing hard. His limbs were aching. His head was pounding. He somehow managed to push himself up on his elbows, one hand opening the box in his other hand. There it still was, Aaron’s ring, as yet untouched by him. Robert shifted around until he was sitting facing the lake. That was close. Robert had definitely felt death brush her fingers against his cheek, on her way to attempting to make a grab at Aaron.

He was going to let that happen though. He wasn’t going to leave Aaron in a watery grave all by himself. Either they both got out, or they didn’t. He caught the terror in his eyes as he came up for air and saw the rear-view mirror. He was serious. Dead serious.

Death had benefited enough from Robert. There was Max. There was Katie. And though he hadn’t offered them up, Death had taken both Pat and Sarah Sugden from him. Death had taken Chrissie and Lawrence, adding them to his guilty conscience. She wouldn’t take Aaron. Not like this.

The steering column had moved, like a miracle, and Robert snatched Aaron back from Death’s cold hands, feeling a little giddy with victory, and lot giddy with minor concussion.

Though, in the hospital, his heart had almost stopped with Aaron’s.

Death was still in the room, telling him not to get too cocky.

*****

Someone was squeezing his hand tight. Robert opened his eyes, though it seemed to be getting harder and harder. Tricia sounded far away when she spoke. “Just hang on, okay? We’re going to have you out very soon. Tell me...tell me about your wedding. You were telling me about how you threw your husband a surprise wedding. Remember?”

Robert blinked tiredly. He remembered, smiling when he thought of Aaron swatting his hand away as he climbed out of the boot of Cain’s car. Tears sprang to his eyes. He’d shake his head if he had energy left. “Hates me.”

“Aaron? Aaron hates you?” She asked quietly, “Why’s that then?”

“Ruined it,” Robert murmured, eyes drifting shut. “Ruin everything I touch.”

*****

Robert was getting out. Two years, and apparently it was enough to get him out, do the rest of a five year term on license, pending investigation into the mishandling of his case. Not that he could hope for compensation, Paul said. Not that he would.

He knew he’d been sent down for Lee, but Robert had never accepted his sentence as punishment for what happened to Lee. There were other things, things that kept him awake at night. He had accepted life in a cell for those things. Lee...Lee deserved what he got.

Katie didn’t. He hadn’t meant it, he hadn’t meant to kill her. He wanted to scare her, terrorise her into silence. Not end her life. But he did. He did it, he killed her. He regretted it.

Chrissie and Lawrence didn’t deserve it. All Robert wanted was his son. Why did they have to take him and run? They shouldn’t have been there, chasing after him. He shouldn’t have given Lachlan the opportunity to take their lives into his hands. He regretted it.

Max didn’t deserve what he got. But Robert had been _so_ angry. Andy made him lose his mind. Max wasn’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t supposed to make Andy swerve. Robert would have swerved. He _would _have. If he’d wanted Andy dead, he’d have left him there and saved Max instead. Why did...no...no it was ultimately his fault. And he regretted it.

_Where’s the justice for him?_ Jack had asked him that question as they stood on the side of a road, watching Andy’s Land Rover burn with Max inside it. He was right. Robert could go to prison, but where _was _justice for Max. He’d sat awake in his cell many nights, wishing away the past, asking the emptiness around him for forgiveness.

_But what about Lee?_ His conscience tried to prod him occasionally. Robert unswervingly always responded, _what about Lee?_

*****

“Robert? Robert talk to me. I know you can hear me, Robert.” He could, he could hear her, and other noises – twisting metal, sirens, anxious voices. He could respond though, feeling a cold numbness creeping over him. “Robert, we’re almost there, okay? I just need you to hold on a little longer.”

Holding on seemed the hardest thing in the world to do sometimes. He was falling. Tipping back and falling falling falling

*****

Robert jerked forward, finding his feet, and looked down at himself. There was blood all over his shirt. He touched his forehead and winced at the pain, before holding his arm against his chest, feeling a dull ache. His whole core ached. He could smell burning. _Petrol_, his mind supplied, _shit. _Robert turned where he stood, and there on the hillside where he stood was a car that looked almost as if it had been crumpled up like paper.

“It’s worse than it looks.”

Robert frowned, turning to the woman at his side. He knew her. She looked like a talking photo. That car looked like a photo too. They both seemed real and unreal at the same time.

“You wouldn’t feel a thing,” she assured him. “It happens so fast.”

Robert blinked at her mutely. Something about her made him feel like he was looking into a mirror of sorts. Seb. Seb had her hair. She smiled at him, moving towards him. Robert took a step back, his heart filled with an odd fear. The both of them here like this, it felt wrong, as if time had been twisted against its will.

She angled her head at him and took another step, reaching out to cup his cheek. He shook at the touch of her, his breath hitching, an embarrassing sound he couldn’t contain passing his lips. She just smiled, picture perfect. When he felt her hand pulling away, Robert grabbed it, feeling an urgency he couldn’t understand.

“Please don’t. Please don’t leave.”

She smiled at him with a look he...he didn’t understand. She didn’t know him enough to look at him like that. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

_Let’s move him out! Now!_

Distant shouts did nothing to rouse him. He was sinking deep deep deep, like his shoes were filled with rocks or something. He flailed out to control the fall, but the water fought back, dragging him down into a seat in a sunken car.

He scowled into the dark water, looking around himself. In the passenger seat was Katie, staring ahead with dead eyes. Robert looked at the rear view mirror. Chrissie was in the back, Lawrence next to her, pale and dead eyed. Robert Max was directly behind him, and he knew he didn’t want to see Max’s face.

Robert tried to get out. Hands reached out for him, the hands of corpses with unseeing eyes. He kicked at them to leave him alone, until someone grabbed his wrist, sending a fiery hot shock of pain down his arm. He was being pulled up towards the shimmering surface of the lake. It flashed bright above him, blinding white, as he was pulled up up up, before falling down on a sandy bank.

Robert lay there with his face pressed against the damp earth, breathing hard, before he slowly turning onto his back, blinking up at the sky. He sat up slowly to see Aaron kneeling before him, watching him intently. Robert stared at his drenched clothes, his pale cold skin, the tiny nicks and cuts that dotted his face.

“Are you scared?” Aaron said softly.

Robert shook his head. “Not when you’re around.”

Aaron leaned in, taking Robert’s face in his hands, kissing him softly.

A door slammed.

He was stood in the middle of a road.

In the distance, completely out of its place was the Mill. He turned around to see the horizon in the opposite direction, Jack Sugden stood between it and him. His dad looked young, colour in his hair and cheeks. He wasn’t dressed like a farmer. He looked like a picture of him from when he was abroad, a completely different man. Robert had always loved that picture.

Robert frowned. “Dad.”

Jack nodded at him. “Son.”

Robert looked around, finding endless rolling hills either side of them. “What happens here then?”

“Whatever you want, lad,” Jack said with a tenderness that brought up a memory in Robert’s mind of his father on Christmas Day, in his grey and maroon striped dressing gown, smiling down at Robert.

“What’s that even mean?” Robert asked.

“It means...you’ve got things you want to say,” Jack said.

Robert laughed, shaking his head. “Bit pointless. I mean, this is all in my head. What does it matter?”

Jack nodded. “Maybe it doesn’t.”

“And...and why are you even here?” Robert said. “Never there when I needed ya. So why now? I mean...if I’m dying. Why you? Why couldn’t it be mum? Why _you_?”

“You’ve no complaints for your mum. Either of them,” Jack said with a heavy shrug. “They never let you down.”

Robert squeezed his eyes shut. “No. No, that’s...that’s just what I _wish_ you would say.”

“Then maybe I just ought to listen, eh?”

Robert opened his eyes to find Jack stood right in front of him, farmer Jack, face lined with years of worry. Some of those lines had his name written on them, some of them Andy, some of them everything else Jack Sugden had lost in his life.

This old man – what he thought had meant so much to Robert.

“Just wanted you to be my dad,” Robert said quietly. “Love me the way you loved Andy. It’s all I ever wanted. Why was that so hard? _Why_ couldn’t you give me that?”

Jack was nodding. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Robert, patting him on the back. If Robert thought really hard, he could feel it, what his father’s embrace had been like once. It was a faded feeling of home and safety, long gone.

Jack pulled back, giving Robert a pat on the cheek, nodding to a spot over Robert’s shoulder. “Time you got back. Take care of them, son. Do whatever it takes to keep them safe. Sometimes that’ll mean cutting your own heart out. Making mistakes. But if you love them, you do what you have to.”

“Even if it’s a family you wouldn’t have approved of?” Robert said.

Jack looked him in the eye, nodding at him. “It doesn’t matter what I think. Does it?”

“No.” The sky was pulsing, beeping, flashing. Robert looked up at it and said, “Not anymore.”

The ground shook, making Robert’s bones jolt.

Jack told him, “Then, go on. Off you go. And don’t look back. Just keep going.”

Robert swallowed, his throat tight, voice wobbling as he said, “Bye Dad.”

The sky pulsed one more time and fell down in a shower of white.

*****

Robert awoke to a constant beeping in a room that felt blindingly bright. His head hurt. His lungs hurt too. When he looked down, he could see his right arm was in a cast. He frowned at the cast blearily, thinking back to the last thing he remembered. He’d gotten to the station in Hotten. He’d decided on taking a cab rather than a bus, even though his belongings amounted to a single bag. He just needed not to be in a crowded space with loads of other people.

The cab driver...Tom? He’d been chatty and upbeat, with a picture of his little girl taped up on the dash. The grin on her face, the black tutu skirt, probably prompted questions all the time, and no doubt Tom spoke about her with the same enthusiasm every time. Good dad, Robert had thought.

They were coming up to Emmerdale, that was the last thing he remembered. Flipping sheep darting into the road. Tom swerved sharply, and Robert was waking up in a hospital room. Everything in between a blank.

Robert looked up from his cast to his left where the chair by the bed was occupied by one hell of a miserable looking man, but also a sight for sore eyes. Aaron looked like he hadn’t slept, and probably hadn’t stopped crying in a while. Soft lad, Robert thought fondly.

Robert turned his hand onto its back, opening it from its loose curl. He croaked out a pitiful, “Hi.”

Aaron’s mouth turned down unhappily, fresh tears trickling out in straight lines. He gave a jerky nod, and Robert knew he wasn’t forgiven, not just yet. Aaron moved closer though, clasping Robert’s hand tight, turning it over as he dipped his head and kissed the back of it. He stayed there, leaning on the edge of the bed and just staring at Robert, Robert offering a watery smile in return.

*****

Robert sat at the lights, tapping the steering wheel with his hand, letting out an impatient breath. He rolled his eyes at the slowest set of lights in his life. As if Hotten had any real traffic to speak of anyway.

“What you getting all het up for?” Aaron asked.

“Nothing. It’s just taking forever. Just wanna get home. Can’t wait to see Seb,” he said.

Aaron reached over and squeezed his knee. “I know.”

The lights turned. “Yes. Finally.”

Robert was never one to drive dangerously, for oh so many reason, but he did put his foot down now and then, like now, eager to cherish every moment he could with his boy.

“You wanna calm down?” Aaron said. He was one to talk, boy racer. “Robert. You almost died in that crash. It’s barely been three months. Shouldn’t even be driving. Are you not scared?”

Robert glanced at the rear view mirror, catching his own frown. He shrugged, smiling, “What? With my lucky charm sitting next to me? ‘Course not.”

Aaron shook his head and laughed, whilst Robert ruminated that, no, he wasn’t scared. Not even a little.


End file.
